Norway; and watch some Radiodays Asia
Hello from Oslo airport, where I am currently waiting for a plane to take me to Stockholm. I’m a guest in the radio and audio conferences in Norway, Sweden and Denmark this week, as well as going to the Independent Podcast Awards in London on Wednesday. Last time I was in Oslo airport, they managed to lose my bag, so I’m hoping this time round they don’t.
Lyddager in Oslo was a slick event, with a varied audience - not just radio, but a lot of audio producers, podcast creators and others. It was excellent to be there. My comments on podcast exclusivity sure kicked up some conversation!
The peculiar Australian radio market continues to fascinate with its ability to blow itself up every Christmas because everyone’s contracts are up: we get a six week period of random fill-ins over the holiday period, and then a lot of new permanent voices on the air. It’s a wonder anyone keeps listening. But, just in Brisbane, over the last few weeks we’ve learnt that the newstalk station 4BC lost its breakfast show last month, and we’ve no idea who’ll be doing that show long-term; Nova’s breakfast show will lose (at least) Susie O’Neill, who’s been on-air for the last ten years with Ash and Luttsy (no word yet on whether they’re staying); rumours about whether Brisbane will get Kyle and Jackie O on KIIS 97.3; but at least one constant - Stav, Abby and Matt on top40 B105 have signed a new long-term contract. Is there any other radio market in the world that does this?
No news yet, either, from the station that doesn’t know what it’s called - “ABC Radio Brisbane” in jingles, “612 ABC Brisbane” in spoken idents, or - amazingly, between 8.05am and 8.30am, just called “AM” without any ABC branding. Whatever the station is called, we don’t yet know any programming changes there. Ellen Fanning sounds as if she may get something permanent; former breakfast host Spencer Howson is returning to breakfast from Dec 9-24, too. Interesting…
Congratulations to Radio 538 in the Netherlands, which has a fancy new studio. “The studio features an on-air radio studio, video control room, audio control room, and a live band room.”
Free (bit of) conference! Radiodays has published some sessions from Radiodays Asia 2024. There are a number of useful full sessions from the radio track for you to enjoy. I’m looking forward to watching Wade Kingsley’s session about Kyle and Jackie O, partially because I could hear it through the wall in the session I was doing at the same time.
Thank you to those - all using Outlook - who couldn’t see the image last week in this newsletter. I wrote a blog post with my learnings there; but it’s impressive how many of you read to the end!
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Where I am speaking next
- Guldörat, Sweden (Oct 22)
- Independent Podcast Awards, London (Oct 23)
- Audiodays, Denmark (Oct 25)
- ASI International Radio & Audio Conference, Venice, Italy (Nov 6)
- Atelier Radiophonique Romand, Neuchâtel, Switzerland (Feb 7)
- Radiodays Europe, Athens, Greece (Mar 9-11 2025)
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